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In my first post for this series, I put forward the idea of ‘being in the moment’. We’ve covered other strategies such as imagery and self-talk to help to manage nerves, boost confidence and control your focus. For this post I would like to show you, using one or more of these skills, how creating a routine for yourself can help you to have the correct mindset to get up and compete to the best of your ability.

We often forget the power of our own thoughts. All day you have a running dialogue in your head, whether it’s giving yourself a motivational pep-talk or running through different scenarios of what you’re going to say or do. That voice in your head is always there.

The tool I’m going to discuss in this post is one I firmly believe every athlete should be using. As a competitor, I reaped the benefits from using it, as a coach I’ve helped my gymnasts develop and learn skills with it and in my role providing sports psychology support I’ve helped athletes build their confidence and control their anxiety by using it. The tool I’m talking about is imagery, or some of you may know it better as visualisation.

For some athletes competing can be a nerve-wracking and stressful experience. Every athlete experiences nerves – if they don’t, then they probably aren’t ready for competition. Even the fastest man ever to live, Usain Bolt, couldn’t sleep before races! However, the nerves associated with competition can have a debilitating effect on performance. Why can competing be such a hard thing to do? Why do some athletes crumble under the pressure?

The importance of the mindset in sport is gaining more attention than ever before. If you were to take two athletes that are physically identical and whose skill repertoire is the same, what is it that sets them apart?

One great thing about the League is that we get to speak to some incredible people from the sport – past and present. We caught up with Kirsten Lawton, former member of Team GB and second female trampolining Olympian. Here is what she had to say:

As the world becomes ever more digital, it would seem that even trampolining is following suit. The new version of an app called ‘Trampoline Assistant’ has been released. The app supports how a coach keeps a record of every competitor under their care and the League got a chance to have a play around with newest update before the release.

Having supported the Trampoline & DMT League as the equipment provider since its formation in 2014, Gymaid has recently confirmed a fourth year as the official trampoline equipment supplier for the 2017 League Series.